Pump Relationship dynamics node

Controls the way in which the data created by this node is shared among multiple objects in the simulation.

Data sharing can greatly reduce the memory footprint of a simulation, but at the expense of requiring all objects to have exactly the same data associated with them.

Determines if this node should do anything on a given timestep and for a particular relationship. If this parameter is an expression, it is evaluated for each relationship.

If it evaluates to a non-zero value, then the data is attached to that relationship. If it evaluates to zero, no data is attached, and data previously attached by this node is removed.

When used in conjunction with an Apply Relationship node, this parameter is used to determine which relationships are acceptable to this node.

If the relationship is not recognized as part of this group, this data will not be attached to the relationship.

Indicates the name that should be used to attach the data to the relationship.

Unlike the case of attaching data to simulation objects or other data, the Data Name here is not very important because a relationship can only have a single piece of data attached to it at a time. This Data Name can thus be used simply to help identify the purpose of the relationship.

If objects are connected to the first input of this node, this parameter specified the set of input objects that will be the affected objects in the relationship.

If used in conjunction with an Apply Relationship node, this parameter is not used because that node defines the actual relationship.

If objects are connected to the first input of this node, this parameter specified the set of input objects that will be the affector objects in the relationship.

If objects are connected to the first input of this node, this parameter specifies the name of the relationship. If this parameter value matches the name of an existing relationship, that relationship will be replaced.

If objects are connected to the first input of this node, this parameter can be turned on to ensure that a unique relationship name is generated by this node.

This ensures that no existing relationship will be overwritten by the one defined by this node.

If objects are connected to the first input of this node, turning this parameter on causes the union of the affector and affected object parameters to be placed into both the affector and affected object lists for the relationship.

This is often used as a shortcut to specifying the same list of objects in both the Affector and Affected Objects parameters.

This optional input can be used to control which simulation objects may be involved in the relationship created by this node.

If this input is not connected, this node can be used in conjunction with an Apply Relationship node to create many relationships at the same time.

If this node has more input connectors, data nodes can be attached to act as modifiers for the relationship described by this node.

The specific types of subdata that are meaningful vary from node to node. Click an input connector to see a list of available data nodes that can be meaningfully attached.

The operation of this output depends on what inputs are connected to this node.

If an object stream is input to this node, the output is also an object stream containing the same objects as the input (but with the additional relationship created by this node).

If no object stream is connected to this node, the output is a relationship data output. This data output can be connected to an Apply Relationship node to create many relationships at once.

This value is the simulation time for which the node is being evaluated.

This value may not be equal to the current Houdini time represented by the variable T, depending on the settings of the DOP Network Offset Time and Time Scale parameters.

This value is guaranteed to have a value of zero at the start of a simulation, so when testing for the first timestep of a simulation, it is best to use a test like $ST == 0 rather than $T == 0 or $FF == 1.

This value is the simulation frame (or more accurately, the simulation time step number) for which the node is being evaluated.

This value may not be equal to the current Houdini frame number represented by the variable F, depending on the settings of the DOP Network parameters. Instead, this value is equal to the simulation time (ST) divided by the simulation timestep size (TIMESTEP).

This value is the size of a simulation timestep. This value is useful to scale values that are expressed in units per second, but are applied on each timestep.

This value is the inverse of the TIMESTEP value. It is the number of timesteps per second of simulation time.

This is the number of objects in the simulation. For nodes that create objects such as the Empty Object node, this value will increase for each object that is evaluated.

A good way to guarantee unique object names is to use an expression like object_$SNOBJ.

This value is the number of objects that will be evaluated by the current node during this timestep. This value will often be different from SNOBJ, as many nodes do not process all the objects in a simulation.

This value may return 0 if the node does not process each object sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

This value is the index of the specific object being processed by the node. This value will always run from zero to NOBJ-1 in a given timestep. This value does not identify the current object within the simulation like OBJID or OBJNAME, just the object’s position in the current order of processing.

This value is useful for generating a random number for each object, or simply splitting the objects into two or more groups to be processed in different ways. This value will be -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

This is the unique object identifier for the object being processed. Every object is assigned an integer value that is unique among all objects in the simulation for all time. Even if an object is deleted, its identifier is never reused.

The object identifier can always be used to uniquely identify a given object. This makes this variable very useful in situations where each object needs to be treated differently. It can be used to produce a unique random number for each object, for example.

This value is also the best way to look up information on an object using the dopfield expression function. This value will be -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

This string contains a space separated list of the unique object identifiers for every object being processed by the current node.

This string contains a space separated list of the names of every object being processed by the current node.

This value is the simulation time (see variable ST) at which the current object was created.

Therefore, to check if an object was created on the current timestep, the expression $ST == $OBJCT should always be used. This value will be zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

This value is the simulation frame (see variable SF) at which the current object was created.

This value is equivalent to using the dopsttoframe expression on the OBJCT variable. This value will be zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

This is a string value containing the name of the object being processed.

Object names are not guaranteed to be unique within a simulation. However, if you name your objects carefully so that they are unique, the object name can be a much easier way to identify an object than the unique object identifier, OBJID.

The object name can also be used to treat a number of similar objects (with the same name) as a virtual group. If there are 20 objects named “myobject”, specifying strcmp($OBJNAME, "myobject") == 0 in the activation field of a DOP will cause that DOP to operate only on those 20 objects. This value will be the empty string if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

This is a string value containing the full path of the current DOP Network. This value is most useful in DOP subnet digital assets where you want to know the path to the DOP Network that contains the node.